Ruby was lost in thought, reminiscing about her last visit to her mother's grave, just before she had been invited to Beacon. The red furred half Grimm had planned to visit it again around this time of the year. But with her whole family, team and even Ozpin advising against it, the young redhead had forgone her plans.
Instead she was now sitting in professor Oobleck's office, the door locked to ensure their privacy as he continue to ramble on while taking measurements of Ruby's various Grimm like features. He even tried his best to sketch out a presumed layout for the Bones in her paws, bemoaning the lack of an X-ray machine he could have used.
Once he had finished that, he motioned for the half Grimm to sit down more comfortably again while he went over the data he had collected on his scroll.
"Hm, Interesting," and similar things were mumbled as he adjusted a few slides and looked over the changing numbers on the screen.
"Pro- Doctor what is so interesting?" the wolf tailed girl asked curiously, moving her chair a bit closer to the professor's desk. The green haired Huntsman looked up at his student after she spoke up, taking a short moment to order his thoughts before replying.
"Well miss Rose, I am looking over the measurements I took of the bones growing from your arms and back, comparing them to those of a scaled down Beowolf." As he turned around the Scroll so Ruby could see the simple model of a beowulf, a few sets of numbers written next to it, pointing to different parts of its body.
"Nearly all of the features you share with the wolf like Grimm are the same size they would be on an alpha Beowolf of your size. The only exception are the spikes growing along your spine, which are roughly a fourth the size of what they would be on the shrunken Grimm."
"Is that bad?" Ruby asked concerned, a hand trailing along the just mentioned protrusions on her back, as her her tail slowly swished from side to side. "I mean if they were any longer, sitting down on chairs would be a problem for example." 'Not to mention how difficult wearing my cloak would be' The grimm faced girl finished in her thoughts, her free hand slightly gripping onto the red fabric of the garment that reminded her so much of her mother.
"That is most certainly true, but the question remains why are they this way? Were you able to subconsciously influence their growth? Are they just this way because you are only part Beowulf, or did they simply not finish growing?" The Professor began to ramble questions and possible answers to this conundrum but was soon interrupted by a ringing coming from his scroll. "But it seems we need to make our way to Amity Colosseum now. After all I believe your team has the first match of today."
After a short nod from the redhead the two of them left the professor's office, before he escorted his half Grimm student through the halls of Beacon. Along the way, reactions to Ruby were varied, as they had been for the last few days. Most of the exchange students she passed regarded her much like they would any normal Grimm, hate and animosity in their eyes, all of which the wolf eared girl took in eagerly, as it made for a nice snack just before her first and sadly only match in the Vytal tournament.
But what really hurt Ruby were the looks filled with distrust and suspicion coming from her fellow Beacon students, many of whom had been friendly to her before hand despite being a 'Faunus'. Only a select few, all of whom had befriended the Grimm like girl before her secret had been revealed, tried to give her encouraging looks, but even so Ruby could taste the hints of fear coming of them. Despite that, Ruby was glad that there were at least a few people who tried to see her as the same Weapons loving geek and scythe-prodigy she had always been.
Standing opposite of team RWBY were the members of ABRN from Haven, after Ruby had shaken the hand of the dark skinned blonde that led the other teams, each of them had moved back to stand with their teams while the terrain for their match was determined. Using the time to take in her opponents, the half Grimm first noticed the green haired girl riding a hoverboard that must have been her weapon, seeing as they had not been allowed to bring anything else as far as equipment went. Slightly behind her stood a tall black haired boy wielding what appeared to be just a simple quarterstaff, or was it a bo staff? The wolf eared girl had never quite understood what the difference was supposed to be. While the leader appeared to be unarmed, the last member of their team at least wielded a normal weapon, a bayoneted rifle that might just shift into a sword some form of spear.
Ripping her gaze from their opponents, the girl standing on paws looked at the indicators that now displayed the terrain they would fight on. A frozen glacier field began to rise to their left, simultaneously with what appeared to be a scorching hot lava field on the other side, Ruby pulled Crescent Rose from her back, and as this was supposed to be a tournament between the best each school had to offer, she felt no qualms about unfolding it into its massive scythe form, confident the other students would be able to adapt to such a weapon.
Once the terrain modules had risen into position, a short countdown heralded the beginning of the match. When the fight began with the sound of a simple horn, Ruby and Blake immediately began to move, with the goal of ending on flanking positions against the enemies formation. Meanwhile Yang took position in front of Weiss for the moment to intercept any enemies that tried to engage her, as the heiress behind her began to assail their opponents with elementals attacks, joined once or twice by an explosive bullet from Ember Cecilia.
Shortly after she made it halfway through the ice covered half of the arena, Blake nearly run over by the girl on a hoverboard, barely reacting quick enough to use her Semblance to get out of the way and let one of her clones take the hit.
At nearly the same time, Ruby had been intercepted by the enemies staff wielder, who had immediately tried to knock her of her paws. The half Grimm quickly embedded the tip of her scythes blade in the ice before her, and instead of falling down, used her remaining momentum to kick her opponent in the stomach. After landing on her paws once more, she freed her weapon form the ice, she barely managed to bring it up in time to deflect her opponents next attack. While it would have been easier, and much quicker as well, to use her new spikes to do so, she was here to show the world that, despite her new appearance she was just another student at Beacon, using her new natural, or in most eyes unnatural, weapons would just underline how different she had become.
With a mighty overhead swing of Crescent rose, she slammed her opponent away for the moment, which the team leader immediately used to see how the rest of her team was doing. Seeing the rifle wielding boy trying to sneak up on her sister, who was currently fighting the other team's leader, Ruby quickly switched magazines and fired a bullet laced with Ice dust at his feet, freezing him in place for the moment.
'This fight is going to be harder than I thought' the redhead mused as she shouted "Got your back sis."
Hearing both her own opponent and Weiss approach her position, Ruby turned around trying her best to come up with a way to win this fight.
Just as the half Grimm had expected, the fight had been tough but in the end Yang, with the assistance of the rest of the team, had managed to punch the remaining enemies hard enough to knock them across the arena and their Aura reserves into the red, securing their victory.
Now the four of them were strolling through the fairgrounds on Beacon's campus, looking for somewhere to grab a bite to eat. Noticing someone tipping on her shoulder, Ruby turned around slowly as the rest of her team moved on for a bit, and came face to face with a red eyed girl with dark skin, holding out the half Grimm's scroll.
"Oh Emerald, from Cinder's team right?" Ruby asked, surprised by the lack of fear and hatred coming from the other student.
"Yeah that would be me." Emerald replied before putting Ruby's scroll back into its owner's hands. "I just saw this slip out of your pocket and thought I should pick it up for you."
Carefully checking the pouches on her belt, the wolf tailed girl put the device away, making sure it wouldn't fall out again.
"Oh thank you, say do you want to join us, we are getting something to eat to celebrate our victory."
Rubbing her neck, the dark skinned girl replied. "That is a kind offer, but I promised Mercury we would watch the other matches together to be better prepared for the doubles round."
As the words left her mouth, Emerald stopped rubbing her neck and, with her eyes widening continued. "I should not have said that."
After a short moment spent deliberating how to calm down the other girl, Ruby leaned forwards to whisper into her ear. "Well, you don't know this from me, but we are going to send Yang and Weiss to the next round."
"Why would you share that with me?" Emerald exclaimed surprised as she took a step back.
"I thought it would bring us on even footing." Ruby answered, tipping her index fingers' claws against each other. After a short shake of her head, Emerald waved to Ruby as she began to catch up to her nearby, gray haired teammate.
Turning around herself, the half grimm soon caught up to the rest of her team, who were lead by Yang, who turned around as her sister approached.
"So who were you talking to Ruby?"
"One of the students from Mistral picked up my scroll after I dropped it." The redhead quickly replied to her sister, not quite meeting the blonde's eyes. "Where are we headed?"
"I know for a fact that my favourite noodle restaurant is selling their noodles somewhere here." Yang replied with a smile on her lips. a few steps later her eyes lit up in recognition and she motioned for her companions to sit down at the counter of a small hut.
"The usual please" Yang said to the old man on the other side of the counter, who gave a short nod before turning to Ruby.
"I'll take the same" The half Grimm said, knowing that anything Yang ate often enough to be 'the usual' couldn't be that far off for her own taste.
It took a while for Weiss and Blake to settle on what to order, Weiss pulled out her credit card to pay.
"It's on me, as a thank you for trusting me to represent us in the doubles round." Weiss informed her teammates as she took the card back from the old man, who stepped into the small kitchen setup in the back of the hut before returning with four bowls filled with noodles, one noticeably topped with what seemed to be whole fishes.
"Let's dig in" Ruby proclaimed before she started fumbling around with the provided sticks, having problems using the eating implements with her claws.
Later that day, Ruby was laying back in her bed, listening to some music on her scroll with her headphones on s as not to disturb Weiss in her studying, when a short 'ding' interrupted her music. Looking at her scroll's screen, Ruby noticed a notification saying 'download complete' but before Ruby could do anything a video began to play, showing a woman with bone white skin laced with dark veins. Her eyes were as red as those of the Grimm and framed by a few strands of hair as white as her skin.
"Greetings Ruby Rose, I am Salem Valorious, your sister by blood, grand aunt and the rightful queen of Vale. Now before you may wonder how I can claim we are sisters while I am your aunt. The answer is that in both of our veins flows the long spilled blood of Fafnir."
As Salem was saying this, her face grew out into the mask of a Nevermore, while her white hair was slowly replaced by seemingly black feathers.
"I am very sorry that I could not be there for you or your mother, like a family should, but I only learned of your existence a little while ago, and could only confirm your identity thanks to Ozpin revealing your make this up to you, I have prepared four gifts for you. The first is the order to all my still loyal subjects and knights to heed your orders as if they were my own. The other gifts might not be ready by the time you receive this message, so I trust my allies in Beacon and Vale to hand them to you once they are finished."
With that the video ended, the picture of Salem smiling still on Ruby's scroll. Confused, the half Grimm lay in her bed for a while longer until a knock on the door pulled her back to reality.
"It's open, just come in." Yang yelled.
Immediately afterwards the door opened, and Winter Schnee and Penny Polendina stepped into the girls dorm room. Closing the door behind them, they moved towards Ruby, ignoring Weiss attempt to greet her older sister. Kneeling before the wolf tailed girl like a knight before his sire, they lowered their heads as Winter spoke up. "Lady Rose, we were informed you finally learned the truth about your relationship with the Queen."
As the words sunk in, all members of team RWBY were struck silent.
So I hope you all enjoyed, if not please tell me why, if you did, a comment would still be nice.
Thanks for reading, see you next week.